


A Canyon Four Weeks Wide

by asokatanos (Emryslin)



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emryslin/pseuds/asokatanos
Summary: The truth of it is that she misses him. But she could miss him just as easily hundreds of miles away in DC as she does right now, sitting two feet away at her desk. || s6 divergent - what if Lisbon had made her decision about Pike without any interference? [J/L fic, worry not]
Relationships: Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72





	1. Distance

**Author's Note:**

> i'm free! i'm free! (you might have noticed I disappeared after posting Come Fly With Me - btw THANK YOU for the lovely comments on that - but I had two major exams this week. Like... rest of my life depends on them major. I still wrote a good chunk of this while taking breaks from studying bc I can't help myself, but finally cleaning it up now.)
> 
> This was supposed to just be a short lil AU ficlet to explore what it might have looked like if Lisbon made decisions about her relationship with Pike on her own instead of as reactions to Jane. It ended up being... a lot more than just that. This first half plays up and tries to explain the way Lisbon was sort of avoiding Jane in mid s6; I'm still working on the second half and it's a little more Soft™ to make up for the (slight) angst of it. Jane/Lisbon, obviously.
> 
> Entirely Lisbon POV; be aware she isn't necessarily an unbiased narrator. Takes place vaguely between Forest Green and Orange Blossom Ice Cream, but I skip past many of the in between eps (and made up timelines). Dialogue isn't actually taken from the show because I just did not want to rewatch the Pike arc but it should be close.

They've been together for three weeks and six days when Marcus Pike tells her about the job offer. Lisbon is pleased for him, excited on his behalf, a little sad to see their dalliance end already, but not altogether deeply mourning the loss. And then he asks her to come with him.

Her first instinct isn't joy. It isn't anger or sadness or fear or relief or excitement either. She just feels- flummoxed. _Are you messing with me?_

 _Three weeks and six days._ She thinks, staring at him with her mouth open. _We're practically strangers._

But he's smiling at her, earnest and nervous and excited. A good man, handsome and uncomplicated and who apparently feels strongly about her. "I know something good when I see it, and this, us - it's good, right?" he asks, holding her hand. So instead of stepping away and turning him down, she shuts her mouth, gives him a jerky nod, and tells him she will think about it.

 _It's definitely not_ bad _. And I'm not getting younger in any case,_ she reasons with herself. _Maybe this chance is as good as any._ It doesn't help, much. She's never hung her hat on marriage and babies and the picket fence - it isn't really a chance she'd been praying for, waiting with baited breath. That just isn't who she is. And sure, that isn't even what Marcus is asking her right now, but she's sure that it's just the first step in that direction.

It doesn't help that she actually really likes her job, either. She gets to work at the federal level, and the pay is better than it had been at the CBI even though she doesn't have the "Senior" in her title anymore. And she gets to work with Cho and Jane, who are as much family to her as her own brothers are. She and Cho have been working together since they were practically kids, he having joined the CBI as a new agent not long after she'd been recruited out of the force. They'd only barely crossed their mid twenties then. Being in Washington had been hard for reasons far beyond just boring unfulfilling work - she'd been away from her team and from her family.

Only the three of them are left of the team now, with Rigsby and Van Pelt firmly committed to enjoying civilian life in San Francisco after their ordeal. Lisbon can probably get a job in DC - maybe even in the Hoover building itself, but not one of them will be there, just like in Washington.

Then again, Washington was also difficult because she'd been all alone, and if she moves to DC with Marcus she certainly wouldn't be. She likes spending time with him, enjoys being cared for - and that is plain, that he cares for her. That part is nice. And it isn't like she's been in Austin long enough to really put down new roots - she hasn't yet really gotten to know Fischer or Abbott or Wylie all that well just yet, and trading them for a new set of coworkers would only be a little sad, not altogether tragic. And despite actually having unpacked all the boxes in her apartment, she doesn't feel particularly attached to the space either. She'd even admired old brownstones while walking past them in Brooklyn during the first case she'd worked with this team, and knows that the ones in DC have a similar aged East Coast charm. It would probably be a trade up from her current place, even if she'd have to share it. Though that would be an interesting change after having lived on her own from the day she'd fled Chicago.

She tries not to think of Jane. He'd been her _partner_ , before, even though he was never an agent. Having a partner _had_ been something she'd dreamed of, far more than she'd ever wished for picket fences. Though she'd hoped, briefly, as they'd hugged in that sterile little office when she'd first come to Austin, that maybe they'd even have a chance to be more than that. But he'd made his demands to Abbott and landed himself in a detention suite for months and kept her out of his plans in New York and- and the distance between them had grown and grown and grown. It feels sometimes like they're standing on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon, shouting at each other but never being heard. She barely sees him on cases any more, and it feels like they are no longer even the partners they used to be, let alone anything else. The further they seem to fall apart, the more she finds herself irritated with him when he withholds his plans, when he antagonizes armed criminals at crime scenes, and sometimes for no real reasons at all.

She tells him that Marcus had asked her to move to DC with him, and he just shuffles a bit awkwardly before noncommittally saying something along the lines of "if you're happy then I'm happy," and offering no further comment. Lately he'd been pulling away from her almost as much as she'd pulled away from him, and she just wants to shake him, see what comes tumbling out of his mouth if he's honest for once. If they both are.

The truth of it is that she misses him. But she could miss him just as easily hundreds of miles away in DC as she does right now, sitting two feet away at her desk. So she tries not to think of him.

In the end, it's not Jane or Cho or Abbott or her brothers or anyone else that makes her decision for her.

_Four weeks and two days._

It's four weeks and two days after they first had pancakes that Marcus blindsides her in Abbott's office, surprising her with a call from Don the senior agent in Washington.

Four weeks and two days. He'd seen her indecision and instead of talking her through it had gone around her like she was a rock in a stream, changing course and carving out currents so she'd find herself tumbling over a cliff face with no other choice but to let gravity take her.

She rounds on him as soon as they leave Abbott's sight.

He doesn't notice, just talks excitedly about the job and how great a boss Don will be. And then he says "I don't want to pressure you, Teresa, but I kind of went out on a limb for you to get him to pass on other candidates so I could have you with me in DC."

Suddenly, she doesn't think he's so nice any more. Not so uncomplicated or straightforward after all. She'd been making lists of pros and cons in her head, all of them peripheral to the one fact she'd avoided and tried explaining away. She doesn't want to spend the rest of her life with him.

"No," she says abruptly, interrupting him as he'd kept talking. She has no idea what he'd been saying, having stopped listening several moments ago.

"No? No you don't want to grab an early dinner or no you don't want the season's tickets to the Nationals? I had to pull some strings to get those so close to the season starting, you know."

 _Four weeks and two days and seven hours._ She doesn't want to waste any more time.

"No," she repeats. "I'm not going to DC with you. It's a good opportunity for you though, you should still go."

He stops, and finally looks at her properly. "Oh," he says. "You want to do this long distance? I'm sure we could, but after a while… I don't know about you, but I-"

She frowns and cuts him off. "That's exactly it, Marcus. You don't know about me. If you did - if you'd even stopped to think about the kind of woman I am - you'd have known better than to try to get me that job without even talking to me first."

He stares at her like he has no idea what she's talking about. "I just wanted to make it easier for you to make the decision," he tells her, and she finally gets it.

 _Practically strangers?_ He doesn't know her at all, isn't interested in anything more than to have someone to take home with him, have a ready made companion so he won't be going alone to find his new beginnings. He'd cleared the path ahead so she'd follow along with the least resistance, saving him the trouble of having to carry her. He hadn't wanted to allow her to choose at all, hadn't let her have the time to think things over, forging on anyway behind her back while she agonized.

It's almost worse than when Jane had done the same thing, because at least that time she didn't have anything to be leaving behind. And technically, she'd had three months to decide, with Henry and the broken stapler for company. Marcus hadn't even given her three days. In fact, given that it's Monday afternoon and he'd first told her about it on Friday, he must have started talking to the DC office as soon as he told her. Maybe even before, and she decides that goes right past the point of alarmingly considerate and veers right into pushy and forceful.

"I'm making my decision, Marcus. We're though." She doesn't say _I'm sorry_. She isn't sure she is.

"It's Jane, isn't it?" He demands, and sounds just like Haffner had when he'd asked her to leave the CBI. It seems like every man who'd ever been interested in her wanted to tear her from her job and her team. She doesn't even bother mustering the energy to be mad about it.

"No. It's me." And then she thinks better of it, seeing no reason to take the blame or allow it to fall on Jane, who hadn't even seemed to have an opinion on the matter at all.

"Actually, it's you. It's you thinking you know me well enough that this was just a done deal, like I'm a chess piece you get to move because you like seeing me around. I don't know, maybe you even think you have feelings for me. You seemed like a nice guy, and it sure was nice having someone to go home to for a little while, but I'm not so sure how much 'nice' I can handle, if this is what 'nice' is like."

And then, feeling a little like twisting the knife because he'd immediately assumed she was thinking about Jane instead of about herself, she adds, "so I'm making my decision, and I'm making it because of you. Goodbye, Marcus. I hope you'll be very happy in DC."

He just gapes at her, and she walks away, screwing up her concentration so she doesn't notice other agents staring. It's usually unlike her to have these fraught sorts of conversations out in the public eye, but she'd been making something of a habit of it ever since she'd told Jane off in a plane stuffed full of people. She ignores the eyes watching her, pulls her purse and keys out of the drawer in her desk, and heads out alone, even though it's almost an hour earlier than her usual exodus. She more than makes up for the time on other days anyway.

Jane appears at her elbow as she waits for the elevator and ducks his head a little to murmur softly so no one else can hear. "Are you all right?" He positions his body between her and the bullpen, shielding her from view, so his are the only eyes she can see watching her.

Her own eyes are clear when she looks up at him, and she thinks he can tell she means it when she says "yeah Jane. I'm fine."

He gives her a long, searching look, but thankfully does not follow when the elevator dings open, even though it's empty. She spots Marcus still staring at her from the hallway and holds his gaze steadily as the doors slide shut.

She feels a little guilty for a moment, because maybe he really _had_ thought he was doing something nice, but by the time the elevator deposits her in the lobby, all she feels is relief. Whether or not he had good intentions, she doesn't want to follow him halfway across the country.

It barely takes her ten minutes to find and set aside the things Marcus had left behind in her apartment. It isn't much - just a spare key to his place, a toothbrush and a razor, a pair of sweatpants he slept in, and a single tie he'd tossed aside in a moment of passion. She'd never even given him a drawer. She puts it all in a shoebox by the door.

And then she draws herself a bath, a little amused that she still feels guilty over doing so - the California in her has yet to leave, even after two years and change. The water is warm, and she drops in a couple of tabs of something Annie had gifted her for Christmas that turns the bathwater purple and makes the steam smell like lavender. She lets it cloud up her mirror, and relaxes.

Life is surprisingly normal after that. The news has already spread by the end of the day, and it takes another three days for most people to stop walking on eggshells around her, alternatively afraid she will break or afraid she will blow up at them too. Thankfully Cho is Cho and Jane is Jane, and both go on as they always have, and she is glad all over again that she isn't leaving them behind. She pretends not to notice the ever so slight spring in Jane's step, and he pretends it isn't there at all. By the end of the week everything is exactly how it was before the art squad had ever invaded their conference room, like those four weeks and two days and seven hours had never happened at all. Even the shoebox is gone, left on his desk upstairs during a moment of free time, and her spare key shows up on hers much the same way. She hadn't left anything else.

Marcus doesn't even try to get her to reconsider, though she does spot him talking to Jane in the parking lot once. She can't hear them, but she catches Jane shaking his head with a laugh, palms up as if to say _I had nothing to do with this_. Marcus gives him a clear look of disbelief, seems to argue with him some more, and then finally drops it and climbs into his car. A second later Jane turns and looks directly at her like he'd known she was there all along, making her flinch. And then he lifts a shoulder in a half shrug, answering her unspoken question about his conversation. She can't help but feel annoyed. Annoyed with Marcus for clearly ignoring her when she'd told him her decision hadn't been about Jane, and with Jane too for always being so underfoot and leading everybody to think he had some kind of claim on her, like he had some final say over her life and what she did with it. She shrugs back, still thirty feet away, and then she too gets into her car and tries not to wonder why she's misdirecting anger towards Jane.

Those thirty feet are as close as they get for a while.

The cases go on like always, but the distance that had opened up between her and Jane had started as a fissure when he'd abandoned her on a bluff in Malibu, widened into a gorge when she'd handed him her gun and let herself get arrested in that park in Sacramento, and had now gaped into a whole canyon in all the time since. She misses him, but she doesn't want to, and it feels insurmountable even when he's on his couch just behind her desk.

He asks her to drive with him to crime scenes in his Airstream, and she refuses, fumbling for excuses that sound thin even to her ears. Some days he feels like a stranger, and she cannot explain it, can't tell him that she doesn't want all this space between them, but because it's there she does not want to come any closer. It's paradoxical, and he'd find a way to wave it away, make it seem small and silly and then change the subject. _Lisbon,_ he'll say _. If you're afraid of space then wouldn't it make more sense to come closer?_ He'll dance right into her personal space and unleash his cheekiest smile while standing far too close. _But did you know, I read somewhere that they've found a way to entangle people's electrons so that they're always on the same wavelength no matter how far apart they are? Sounds romantic, doesn't it?_

They've been in a holding pattern ever since they reunited, not going back to what they had and not going anywhere else either. Part of it is him, but a big part of it is that if she lets him any closer, he could just as easily hurt her all over again. She'd realized somewhere along that keeping ideas close to his chest and keeping secrets is just a fundamental part of Jane's nature. She can't change him, and mostly she doesn't even want to, but she's cautious of him all the same now that she knows it.

Fischer continues to monopolize him on cases and there are days when Lisbon doesn't see him at all, when the crime scenes are too far to drive to and back in a day. She misses him more than she wants to admit on days like that.

When the cases are nearby, when they do work together, he is as inscrutable as ever, keeping his secrets and pulling his schemes and getting himself into trouble. She wants to be far from him on those days, put her heart in a box that says _Do Not Disturb_. She doesn't think he'd read the signs before delving in anyway, contrarian as he is, pulling some endearing stunt to worm his way in, picking all the locks quicker than she can lock them in the first place. And he can just as easily disappear, trick her with lies and smoke and mirrors while running in the other direction, her _Do Not Disturb_ box left wide open and its contents free to be broken.

It's his potential energy she fears much more than anything, which doesn't seem fair to him, but then he'll leave her in the dark about one of his schemes and she will catch a clear glimpse of the precipice on which they stand. She uses her anger and her fear like an anchor, keeping her safe, but with every day that passes that they don't remedy themselves she feels it grow heavier and heavier, and maybe some day soon it will pull her down with him over that edge anyway. She thinks it will hurt when they hit the bottom.

Nearly two months later an undercover FBI agent turns up dead in Austin, and the ATF agent - Spackman - attached to the case insists that they cannot reveal his identity. Nobody likes it - both she and Cho voice their protest; after all, how can they be expected to investigate his death and ask questions while still keeping his cover? But Agent Geist was one man, and the guns Spackman is trying to track can harm a whole lot more, so they back down for the sake of the larger investigation.

Jane strolls into the scene and it takes him less than seven minutes to get _irked_ by Spackman. He boldly announces Geist's identity to the gathered suspects, effectively ruining the task force's entire investigation. Lisbon doesn't even try to hide her ire in the car ride back, and makes no moves to try to defend him when Spackman takes him to town with Abbott.

Jane is unruffled by his dressing down, but then his eyes skip right over her as he hands Cho a hammer and tells him only the vaguest details of what sounds like it might be part of a Plan.

In the end, Jane's schemes work, and Spackman leaves the interrogation room looking confused and pleased and annoyed all at once. Jane emerges after him, triumphant and smug. He looks to her as if expecting praise, but she finds she doesn't have any, so she just turns away from him and goes back to her desk.

He chases her down as she retreats.

"Lisbon," he says. "We have to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about." she doesn't look at him, feeling a tiredness she can't explain.

"There clearly is, because you've been upset and I'd like to fix it. Come on. It's the end of the day anyway." He pulls her up from her desk and doesn't let her protest any further. She resists a little, wrenching her elbow from his grasp, but follows him into the elevator and allows him to usher her into the Airstream in the back parking lot.

She takes a seat sideways in the front passenger seat, and looks around at the cabin as he closes the door behind them. Back in Sacramento she'd never really entered his living spaces, not unless she counted his attic, though at the time he probably lived there more than his motel room. The Airstream is nicer than she expected it to be, though on the outside it's still a huge silver eyesore that looks deeply out of place in the FBI parking lot. She wonders if he parks it somewhere else when he's not at work, and suddenly feels a little sad that she doesn't know.

He sits on the couch behind the driver's seat, a low table in between them like a shield. The silence stretches like a bubble before them, and then finally pops.

"Teresa," he says. "What happened?"

She frowns at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, Jane."

"Honestly? Neither do I. But something's been wrong between us for a long time now and I'd like it not to be. I haven't seen you smile in two weeks."

She's taken aback by the inherent sweetness of him having noticed, and feels her expression soften a little, but she turns her head away to look through the window. It takes her a long moment to find words, and he waits with a patience that makes her question why she'd been keeping him at arm's length.

"I don't know," she says finally, answering her own thought rather than his. But then she spots the hammer on a table somewhere behind him, and recalls his antics during this latest case.

"Why did you go against Spackman's direct orders?" she asks, settling for the most obvious question. "Couldn't you have figured it out without messing with their investigation?"

He shrugs, and responds too quickly for it to be anything but the truth. "He was rude to you."

Her resignation morphs directly into surprise. "What?"

"He was rude to you. I didn't see any reason to listen to him."

"Jane, that's-" _Ridiculous,_ she thinks. _Sweet, but not exactly Jane's MO._ She has never known him to worry about rudeness. "You're rude to me all the time," she points out.

"Oh come now, Lisbon. I hold you in far too high esteem to call you _whiny_ like that. Anyway - I solved both cases, didn't I? Spackman doesn't have anything to be mad about, and neither should you. What else?"

She rolls her eyes, but lets it go. And then hesitates a moment before just letting her mouth take over, bypassing her usual filters altogether. "I thought we were partners back at the CBI, but even then you were keeping things from me. I don't even know how things ended with McAllister back in Sacramento. I _assume_ he was Red John, because he turned up dead and you disappeared. I didn't even know if you were still alive until I got your first letter two months later."

"I called you!" he tells her, aghast. "You didn't- you didn't get my message?"

 _That would have been nice to have._ She thinks back to the day she usually tries to forget. "No. I was arrested after I last saw you - we all were. They dropped the charges later, obviously, but they had my phone in evidence for forty eight hours. The message must have been deleted."

He just stares at her, robbed of anything to say. His jaw works like there are words fighting to get out, but instead of setting them free, he stays silent. She thinks the words might be _I'm sorry,_ but he lets them slip away unsaid.

"It doesn't matter," she sighs, saving him the trouble, and makes to get up and leave. She feels a little less tired, but the distance between them still stretches miles wide, filled with all of the things he has never told her.

He stops her with a hand on the forearm. "No, there's something more. That was two years ago. And you did get my letters eventually. Tell me," he encourages softly.

Without knowing it, he'd stumbled onto the landmine packed full of the frustrations she'd kept tucked away for years. It explodes. Spectacularly.

"Maybe that's the whole problem, Jane. You always want _me_ to tell _you_ things, but you never do the same! It was like pulling teeth back then, even getting you to tell me about your seven suspects, and you _still_ kept your plans to yourself. And then when you came back you just acted like it was a forgone conclusion that I'd drop everything to come work with you again."

"I apologized for that! Months ago! And I meant it, Lisbon!"

"Yeah, sure, and I decided to come to Austin. But on the very next case you hatched one of your schemes on _Krystal_ , and didn't bother letting me in on the plan. She could have killed you if I hadn't already figured it out and been on my way."

A crease appears between his eyebrows, and she can tell he's lost his footing. He probably had never even given a single extra thought to that case after it was over, which is gratifying and frustrating in equal measure.

"You went behind my back with Rigsby to find Grace too," she reminds him, pacing now, and the crease deepens like he is surprised she'd read his confusion. She wonders when she'd gotten better at reading him than he could read her. Maybe she is just better at hiding from him, now. Or she's been more successful in pushing him away than she'd thought, and that almost makes her wish she hadn't. Almost.

"It isn't just any one case, Jane. I thought maybe things would be different now, but you still don't tell me anything. Not even when I ask!"

"I didn't tell you what we were doing because it was _very_ illegal! We _stole_ a car and _kidnapped_ Haibach out from under his lawyer's nose and _Rigsby shot at him_ because we had to find her. I wasn't worried about my job because of Abbott's deal, but yours could easily have been in jeopardy. You were already mad at me about manipulating you to take this job in the first place, I really didn't want to be the reason you lost it too. And what do you mean, 'when you ask?'"

"I asked you what you thought when Marcus asked me to go to DC with him. You acted like it didn't matter."

"Of course it _mattered,_ Teresa. Of course it did. You don't think I'm happy that you stayed? I'm overjoyed."

She snorts in disbelief, but he just continues as if she hadn't made a sound at all.

"But you told me to stop making decisions for you, stop thinking of what I want instead of what you do. When you told me about DC, my first instinct was to find a way to make it impossible for you to even want to go, but-" he stops, sighing and stuffing his hands in his pockets before continuing, softer. "I didn't want to influence your decision. I wanted you to stay, but you were right. You had to make your decisions yourself."

He wisely avoids pointing out that Marcus' pushiness had obviously been the nail in that coffin, though she catches his eyes slanting away from her in a way that tells her he thinks it. It bothers her, that he'd only kept his distance in this one instance that it had been easier for him to do so when normally he steamrollered right in without a moment's regard for what she'd asked of him.

"So now that it suits you, you decide to listen to me? Back before Red John you never bothered to."

She continues pacing, and he hesitates, clearly weighing his options. She knows he can diffuse her anger now and allow her to leave with a few carefully placed words, or he can finally engage and have it out. The crease disappears into a sort of determined look, and she braces for impact.

"No," he leans towards her, though the table is still between them. "Now that the stakes aren't so high I realized that _you were right_. I didn't have to keep pushing you away, not any more. But you've been avoiding me for what feels like months now, and I have no idea what you want." He shakes his head and falls silent, worrying at his lower lip in his version of a pout.

She turns on her heel and stares him down, her anger flaring for reasons she can't explain. "What _I_ want? You always just went ahead and did whatever you planned on doing anyway, never mind what I ever wanted! You pushed me away and lied to me back at the CBI, and even now you still don't let me in. You are so selfish! All I want from you is the truth!"

Suddenly, he stands, his hands flying out of his pockets and eyes flashing in defiance. She immediately regrets her words - too harsh, too far past the lines they usually stayed behind. He doesn't even deserve them, having done nothing particularly out of his usual un-ordinary lately. She desperately wants to take them back, but he doesn't let her.

"You're right, I am selfish. I did whatever I had to do to keep you far from Red John because I couldn't stand to see you harmed. You want the truth? Fine." He turns his back to her to stare out the window, the lines of his shoulders tense and hard. She is suddenly afraid to hear what he might say.

Before she can stop him, he continues, his voice flat, harsh. "The truth is that I killed Red John that day, and I did it with my bare hands. Your gun was really only a prop, like I promised you it would be. In the end I chased him down and took his life with this hand." He holds it up, and his ring glints in the sunlight.

"And then I was going to take mine too. The other gun was already in my other hand and the one thing I had been trying to do for ten years was finally done. It would have been easy." He holds up his right hand and turns his head to examine it as if reliving the moment. The sun catches his profile through the window, silhouetting him, and he looks like Hamlet holding Yorick's skull, soliloquizing about death.

Her hand flies to her mouth, the thought horrible. In this story about the mad prince who avenged his dead family, was she Ophelia or Horatio? _Are we being marched towards tragedy, chased by ghosts?_

But then he drops his hand and the moment dies as he turns to her and holds her gaze, refusing to let her flee as he drops the unvarnished truth at her feet. The chasm between them yawns ever wide, his bluntly delivered truths pulling her closer and closer to falling right over the edge.

"I didn't do it, obviously. Because I thought about you. Nobody else, Teresa. I spent ten years hurting you to get what I wanted, pushing you away so Red John would never come after you. But I'm certain he only left you alive the night he had you because he wanted to keep playing his game, wanted to draw it out. He knew it would have been game over for me if he hurt you. I guess I did that just fine on my own anyway, didn't I?" A bitter laugh escapes him, and he finally breaks their gaze, looking away from her wide eyes.

But his voice is a little gentler when he continues.

"When Abbott came after me, I was ready to come home because I missed you so much. You were the first on my list of demands and the _only_ one that mattered. And when you told me off on that plane, I realized I didn't want to go back to the way things were. You were right. And I've been trying to listen to you. But it seems lately like you've decided you've had enough of me." He is still tense, but there is a new sadness in his face when he looks at her again.

"You want the truth? The truth is that I felt closer to you on that island than we have been lately. The truth is that at this point I don't know what you want, but all _I_ want is just to be your friend again. All I want is that you want the same thing." The fight seems to have drained out of him completely, and the last words are delivered in barely more than a whisper, murmured into her shocked silence. All at once she feels like she's finally seeing the man who had written her all those letters.

"We're friends," she insists, chin jutting out a little in an expression that is at once both pouting and defiant.

"Are we?"

She doesn't respond, but her anger has dissipated, so she tentatively raises her hand and presses two fingers against his arm like she had after their first Red John case, offering comfort. And then she turns and walks to the door, needing time to make sense of things. Until he'd pushed her, she hadn't even realized she'd let old hurts fester this way, but now she wants to go home and think.

She barely makes it three steps before Jane reaches out and catches her hand. "Wait," he says, before wrapping his arms around her and hooking his chin over her shoulder.

She holds herself stiffly at first, but relents and doesn't push him away when he pleads, "just for a minute."

He tightens his arms around her as soon as she relaxes. There is no mistaking the desperation in his voice when he mumbles "I'm sorry. I just miss you. I miss you, Lisbon."

"I'm right here, Jane." The words are as automatic as the way her hands reach up to hug him back.

But he shakes his head as he releases her and she knows he's right. Somewhere along between the park in Sacramento and the steel and glass bullpen in Austin, the ease of their friendship had disappeared. And despite being pros at investigating, neither of them had been able to find it again. Instead of knowing how to look for it, she'd been pulling away instead, afraid because he already had the power to hurt her more than anyone else she'd ever known. If Marcus hadn't walked right over her and called Don, she might have run all the way to DC to escape Jane and the canyon between them - and it would have been a terrible mistake.

This time, she makes it to the door, but stops before opening it. She turns and offers over her shoulder, "I miss you too, Jane. More than you know."

As she climbs into her car, she sees him in her rearview mirror, still standing in the doorway. _Maybe we do have a chance to build bridges across this wide canyon of ours,_ she muses, and drives home.

* * *

At home, Lisbon finds herself at a loss. She is back much earlier than usual - still after the work day had ended, but early for the second time in as many months. She still isn't used to having hours left in the day, at least not with daylight still shining in through the windows.

Back in Washington, there had often been nothing left to do, no paperwork to fill out or cases to read up on. She'd closed all two of Cannon River's cold cases within three weeks of being there, and had been stuck essentially twiddling her thumbs and ordering stationary for the two years that followed. Once Jane's letters had started arriving, she'd made her way home more often instead of sticking around the office with nothing to do - finding one of the letters in the mailbox or in the eaves near her front door or tucked into the rosebushes was always a highlight. She never knew when they would come, and only knew how they were being delivered because she caught sight of Sam Barsocky once, four months in.

Sam had waved, fondly called her "Pepper," and all but disappeared into the woods without staying to chat.

She'd been home more often, but Jane's letters only showed up twice a month at most, and so she'd wound up actually unpacking all her boxes. Six months in she'd even bought a couple of decorative items - just a canvas print and a vase, but it was more than she'd done back in Sacramento. The print is a vaguely abstract mix of cool colors and taupe tones, and if they echo the way Jane described beaches on the island, no one would ever be any wiser.

She glances at it now where it hangs in a prime location across from her front door in Austin, immediately noticeable upon walking in. Marcus had commented on it once, the first time he'd been invited over, and she'd just shrugged and told him she bought it before moving to Austin. He hadn't noted the cowrie shell sitting on an olive wood box on the shelf just below it, and she'd been glad to not have to explain where those had come from.

With a sigh, she boils water for pasta and sits down on the couch - a comfortable white one like the one she'd grown fond of back at the CBI - and reaches over for the box. There's a thin sheen of dust over it, and she feels a little pang when she realizes she hadn't touched it in nearly five months. She hadn't really needed to, not with Jane's presence so unmistakeably back in her life every day. But there had been times in Washington - particularly in the dark of winter when the sun would dip beneath the horizon before she ever got home - that she'd curl up with them, let the light hidden in his words shine onto the walls of her living room.

She pulls out the one he'd sent last, which had arrived after the case in New York. He must have sent it just before leaving the island, but he was already locked up in a detention suite for a week before Sam reappeared in Cannon River. That time, Lisbon had stopped her.

"Ms Barsocky," she'd called, seeing the woman about to turn the corner.

"Oh Pepper, just Sam, please."

"Sam. I just wanted to thank you for delivering these letters. They've meant a lot to me. Would you come in?"

"Honey, I don't know if that's such a good idea."

Lisbon had smiled at her, only a little sadness tucked away into the corners. "It's okay. He's back in the States now, in Austin. The FBI have him, but they're offering him freedom in exchange for working cases."

"Let me guess, he's trying to milk them for everything he can get?"

"Got it in one. Come on, I'll tell you the rest of it."

Lisbon had made dinner, setting aside extras for Pete. That was something else she'd newly picked up in Washington - the habit of actually cooking. She told Sam everything she knew, though she suspected that Jane must have been sending them letters every now and then too. When she'd finished explaining that he'd managed to navigate himself into whatever a detention suite was, Sam had laughed, her pretty face lighting up with fondness.

"That boy is a regular Houdini, Pepper. He can break himself out of there any time he wants. The Feds really don't know who they're dealing with, do they?" She let out another round of chuckles. "I only got one question for you though. If he's in Austin, what are you still doing way out here?"

Lisbon had shrugged. "He was trying to get them to offer me a job. I'm still not sure he has that kind of bargaining power though - the deal they were offering him was already too good to be true, I don't know that they'll be willing to give up anything else."

Sam had smiled knowingly at her. "That's not what I asked you, Pep. But I better be going now, Petey'll be waiting up for me. You take care of yourself, honey. And when you do see Paddy again - tell him I said hello."

Smiling a little at the memory, Lisbon sets the letter aside, and reaches for the oldest and most well worn one instead.

_Dear Teresa,_

_I hope that wherever you are when you receive this letter that you are happy and that you are safe. I don't know what happened back home after I had to leave, whether you got your job back or if the workplace really did shut down. I wasn't there by your side in the aftermath, and while I can't think of any way I could have been, I still regret having to leave you without even saying goodbye. I can't say where I am, of course, though I think you would like it here. I can tell you that I'm on an island, somewhere warm, and the sun shines for most of the hours of the day. I can't communicate very well with the locals, but they have been unfailingly kind._

_Do you remember the day we met? I think yours were the kindest eyes I'd ever seen, but you surprised me too, by telling me I was a mess and asking me to clean up. You kept me on my toes, Teresa. I needed it, then. Maybe I still do. There's a woman here at the post office who reminded me a little of you. She looks nothing at all like you (and she's probably twenty years older) but she saw me wandering around and took pity on me, helped me find a place to stay. She made me help her move around several boxes first though, and offered me probably the worst tea I've ever had in my life. Worse even than your first attempt, which had been superlative - and one of my fondest memories from the last several years._

_I spend many of my days on the beach - which extends nearly everywhere outside the main town square. The sound of water has always had a calming effect, and I need it these days. There's been a lot to think about, now that my big quest is done. I regret some of what I had to do, but I'm not sorry it's over. I got him, in the end. He won't be hurting anyone else. But without the search and without the purpose you gave me in the work we did together, I don't know where I stand. But wherever it is, it's outside the shadow of death, and for that I'm glad. I hope to find a way back to you some day, and maybe by then I will be ready to reenter that world. But for now I am spending my days watching the turtles hatch and unerringly find their way home, the sun warm on their backs._

_Yours,_

_U No Hoo_

She'd reread the letter so many times in the week that she'd received it that she had it nearly memorized. The edges are soft with handling and there's even an embarrassing little crinkle in the corner where she'd accidentally shed a tear the first time she'd read it. Actually crying over a letter from Jane had been too ridiculous a thing to do, so she'd immediately folded it back up and stuck it in a drawer while telling herself to get a grip, though that crinkly little edge was permanently marked into the page like evidence. She hadn't ever expected a second letter, much less a whole series of them, and so had treasured the first more fiercely than she'll ever admit.

The letter that had arrived a full year after she last saw him is by far her favorite.

_My dear,_

_There was a storm recently, and the island was pretty badly hit. Before you worry: I'm all right - in fact, by some miracle, nobody was hurt at all. The fishermen came running back into town even before the news started broadcasting the weather report; I have no idea how they knew, but they could sense that the storm had changed directions and came back to warn us. We were gathered in a church up on a hill near the middle of the island when it hit, and the noise was like nothing I've ever experienced before. You know I've never really thought much about faith or fate, but Teresa, that church shared your name and kept the whole town safe. It sounded like the entire island was being torn apart, but that little building held on and never even cracked._

_I've been helping the others with the clean up operation in the time since (yes, really; I actually don't even own a couch here), and with every fallen tree we move I am moved all over again by the resilience of that little church. That it shares your name is fitting. Your resilience has always been incredible to me, and it is not lost on me that it was you who kept me safe during all those years when I was trying to fight the storm. I find myself wishing that I told you so more often. Your friendship will always be one of the greatest gifts in my life._

_The power has been out since the storm, and the heat that settled into the bones of everything around here has yet to dissipate. I've never really slept well, but it is especially difficult to do so without the benefit of electricity, and I found myself wandering out onto the beach. It was the most incredible sight I've ever seen, Teresa. The storm must have taken all the clouds with it when it passed, because the sky was clear as can be, and the whole of the heavens was there to see. Out in California there was always too much light, but here with the power out over the whole island and well into the main land, it was like looking up into forever. Have you ever seen the Milky Way? It makes you feel like the only person who has ever existed, at once a giant and a tiny speck witnessing infinity._

_Even more incredibly, the currents from the storm also washed in some kind of plankton. They glow! Out there in the darkness with the Milky Way above and millions of those glowing creatures in the inky darkness of the sea it was like wading out into space, seeing what the universe looked like when it began. It was strangely humbling._ _Not a day goes by that I don't feel your absence, but never more so than while standing out there. There's nobody I wanted to share it with more. There are moments, sometimes, when I can picture you so clearly that it's almost as if you are here, but even my vivid memory doesn't quite get all the details right._

_By the time you get this, it will have been a year since we last saw each other. I have found some measure of peace out here on this island, but I hope that you have found real happiness where you are. You deserve it, Teresa. It would make me happy to know that you're happy. I hope we will see each other again, and that one day I will be able to bring you here so you can see these infinite heavens and meet the Teresa that kept me safe in your stead._

_Yours always,_

_U No Hoo_

The letters are precious to her because they contain a Jane unfettered, who told her truths and whose words held nearly as much longing as she'd felt on the loneliest nights in Cannon River. She'd thought of things she wanted to say to him when she had first been dragged down to Austin, but then she was distracted by the joy of actually seeing him again and too busy wrapping her arms around him to remember any of them. And then they'd been thrown into the deep end with case after case, back under what Jane had called the shadow of death.

She'd thought that the Jane that would come back from that island would have been different. In some ways he is - physically he is leaner, sharper lines and longer hair, a glow that could only have come from days in the sun, that beard that had sent all her thoughts stuttering. And he is lighter too, some of the darkness lifted from his shoulders, fear and tragedy no longer thick in his voice. But when it comes to work he is still showman as much as he is investigator, like nothing had changed at all.

The Jane she works with - the poltergeist, the magician - is _so_ different from the man in those letters, though she wonders now if that man could only ever exist out from under the heavy thumb of law enforcement and the federal government. Jane's games and lies protected him like armor back at the CBI, and here in Austin he is using them the same way. She has her _Do Not Disturb_ box, and in his way, he has his. The letters were like keys he'd willingly handed over, glimpses of what had to be the truth of him.

The truths he'd just told her had been unsettling, his voice remorseless in a way that should have been frightening. But she'd already known he'd killed Red John, had even been prepared to let him do it by the time he'd trusted her with his seven suspects two years ago. It isn't that she agrees with extra-judicial killing; she hates the thought. But the Red John case had made one fact crystal clear: the entire justice system in California had been corrupted, not just law enforcement, and Red John would never have seen any kind of justice. Even Jane hadn't seen justice when he killed Timothy Carter, and he'd gone so far as to admit having done so on the stand. If he could so easily manipulate a jury, there was no telling what a man like Red John could have done, especially with so many in his pocket. And on the other hand, people like Madeline Hightower had suffered so much _in_ justice, hunted down for a crime she didn't commit, slandered by media and the law alike. Lisbon has no doubt that if Jane hadn't rescued Hightower, she'd have been tossed into prison for the rest of her life, even if she stood before a jury claiming innocence.

More than anything after their conversation though, Lisbon is... relieved. He'd told her once that he planned to gut the man who killed his family, make him suffer, torture him even, and that was a Jane she had never wanted to see. She isn't _happy_ that he'd killed someone, but that he'd done it so quickly is something of a relief. Though she does wonder where he'd found that kind of strength; her years of expertise suggested that strangulations were almost always done by killers with much smaller victims - usually women - and always with the dominant hand. But Jane wasn't left handed and Thomas McAllister hadn't been particularly small, so Jane's story is unusual. Then again, he would never have made up what he said about turning the gun on himself, and so she's sure he hadn't been making up any of the rest either. In fact, the whole conversation had probably been the most blunt, unfiltered truth he'd ever told her, not couched in elegantly misleading turns of phrase or hidden beneath pretty manipulations.

Towards the end he'd even sounded a little like Jane-from-the-letters, wholly more dear and familiar than Jane-the-stranger who she'd been avoiding for months. And it was true - he really was trying. But looking at the letter again, she begins to understand. During those two long years, she had fallen for the voice she heard in those letters. It was easy, because he said beautiful things in beautiful ways, and more importantly, there was nothing at stake; it was almost like falling for a fictional character. But she'd separated the Jane she'd always known - with all his flaws and complexities - from the idealized, meticulously thought out version of him in the letters, and then got upset because he was still Jane. Her friend. Despite everything, still the person she trusts the most in the world.

And if she is really, _really_ honest with herself, she knows that she wanted him long before he ever wrote a single letter. She had relied on the impossibility of ever acting on it back while they were still hunting Red John, but in her heart of hearts she had wanted Jane to sweep her off her feet the moment they saw each other again - and had been more than a little disappointed when he hadn't. He'd just tried to go back to their old equilibrium, and she had resented him for it. Maybe he doesn't want her the way she secretly wants him to, but she hadn't stopped to question whether pushing him away like she had would hurt him anyway. She thinks of the desperation in his voice when he'd hugged her, and knows that it had. Whether or not they will ever be anything else to each other than just friends, she knows she doesn't want to keep hurting him.

A hissing sound wrenches her from her thoughts and her head snaps up to catch her pasta boiling over onto the stove, overcooked and ruined into a starchy mess. With a groan, she puts the letter down and hurries over. With no hope for rescuing it, she sighs and resigns herself to ordering food again. So much for cooking.

She reaches for her phone, and of their own accord her fingers dial Jane's number instead of her favorite take out place. She doesn't realize until he picks up, distracted as she is by the mess in her kitchen, but her hands still when she hears his quiet and hopeful hello. Without having to think about it, she makes a decision.

"Hi Jane. Do you want to go on a drive, grab dinner on the way?... No, in a _car_... I'm sure you can, but you can show me how great a cook you are some other time... I'll swing by and pick you up... Hey! Just for that, you're buying!"

Time to build bridges across the canyon.


	2. Undercover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT AUGUST 4TH - there were a series of very real explosions in Beirut, Lebanon. I posted this before that happened, but I am editing one scene to remove references to explosions (fireworks at the end of Orange Blossom). Donations are much needed and would be best sent to the lebanese red cross.
> 
> I am blown away by the positive response to the first installment both here and on ffnet. Thank you!
> 
> Anyway, where we're at with part two since it's been a week: Lisbon has decided she's done pushing Jane away and realizes she's wanted him for a long time (she hasn't gotten around to thinking the L word just yet!) and she thinks he isn't interested in her the same way. She's wrong, obviously, and this Jane is extra sweet because a) Lisbon has some rose-colored glasses on and b) he's really trying to win her over. Like the previous section, we're still in Lisbon's POV, because that was a fun challenge to write. Unlike the first section, for this one I'm delving into a couple of episodes in more detail to ask these questions: how does Greybar Hotel work if they aren't already together? What about Orange Blossom Ice Cream? And how do they finally figure things out without the somewhat absurd threat of Lisbon running away forever? Come find out~

Two days after Lisbon's resolution and their subsequent drive, they are tasked with stopping a grand theft auto ring, and Jane leaps at the chance to plan another mission. His enthusiasm dims a little when he realizes only Lisbon can go in this time, but he still takes to planning with a gusto that makes her smile. She hasn't seen him this excited since the art theft case, and she makes the connection with an unpleasant lurch twisting in her gut. She'd taken to avoiding him more than ever around then, and she'd even slung a few stinging verbal barbs at him. In hindsight, none of them had been warranted - the guilt plucks at her uncomfortably.

He catches the look on her face and stops in the middle of his sentence to frown at her in concern. She shakes her head at him, trying to telegraph _it's nothing_ , but he doesn't continue. She offers her initial thought, swallowing the guilt instead of admitting it.

"It's just - I haven't seen you this happy in a little while, that's all." She shrugs, though she can feel her cheeks start to pink when he smiles in a way that's alarmingly soft.

"I enjoyed getting to spend time with you again, of course I'm happy," he tells her, and then adds with the hint of a pout, "even though you vetoed taking the Airstream."

But then his smile reemerges and lingers on her and she can't help but smile back, feeling a strong swell of affection. She'd always forgiven him his offenses in the past, but this time she'd hurt him without any good reason and he'd had the grace to simply forgive, accepting her peace offering without waiting for apology or explanation.

And then he goes further and does something new: he lays out the entire plan, not leaving out any of the details, inviting her behind the curtain for the whole scheme.

She listens carefully, offering suggestions that flesh out the details, giving him pointed looks when he's surprised that some of her ideas make more sense than his. But then he falls silent, expression a little uncertain. Looking out in the direction of Abbott's office instead of at her, he says "I'm going to ask Abbott to let me be your point of contact on the outside. He might want Cho or another agent on it instead, but as harmless as these people supposedly are, I can't overlook the fact that my plan will be putting you in harm's way. I need to see it through."

He doesn't ask her if it's what she wants, but he's chewing at the inside of his cheek in the almost uncharacteristically tentative way of his she'd started to notice recently. He wasn't kidding when he said he was trying, and seeing it makes Lisbon's heart melt all over again. She almost wants to tell him he doesn't have to ask.

She reassures him instead. "I'll be okay, Jane."

But the next morning, she's more nervous than she thought she'd be, sitting in a garish orange jumpsuit in the back of a squad car. This op is much more Jane's style of detective work than hers, and unlike the last time she'd been undercover, she doesn't have him there to dazzle the target with a bit of flash. She has to befriend this girl all on her own, earn her trust and get her to spill the beans, and she only has a few days to do it before it will be too late.

As if summoned, Jane suddenly slides into the back seat with her.

"What are you doing here? I'm supposed to be heading in soon."

He ignores the question, but ducks his head a little so their eyes are level. "Lisbon, I want you to know that I'm going to be here every step of the way. I know you can do this, but if you need me, you can call me. There won't be anyone listening in."

She doesn't know what to say to that, so she just nods, and then holds up her wrists in a silent request for him to snap the cuffs on. He does, but then doesn't release her hands. A cheeky grin spreads across his face.

"Suits you more than I'd have expected, jailbird. I'll see you on the outside."

"Hush!" She elbows him, smiling, and is surprised to be feeling better than she had been before he'd shown up.

Marie Flanagan shuts her down almost as soon as they meet. Jane's easy tricks for winning trust don't work, and the younger woman is angrier and more chaotic than either of them had foreseen. A full day goes by, and Lisbon nearly ends up in a fist fight with another inmate who is apparently territorial about her preferred shower stall.

She makes no progress with Marie. Instead, she finds herself getting caught in the web of her own lies, struggling to hide the parts of herself that apparently telegraph her profession to carnies and criminals alike. Like the fact that she visually sweeps every room she enters to assess for threats (left first, then right, then front and center), that she always holds her right arm just slightly extended (so she can reach for her sidearm if she needs to), that her right hip swings just a touch more than her left (because she spends most of her time compensating for the weight of the gun). Jane had spent the better part of an hour pointing these things out to her, coaching her into awareness the best he could. Here behind bars, movements like that can only get her in trouble, but even though she's glad she can be aware of them, forcing herself not to move like that makes her feel stiff and unnatural.

She heads for the phone to call Jane the next afternoon, feeling like she'd been in prison for a week and not just twenty-four hours.

His voice is warm on the other end of the line, and she immediately asks a little desperately, "Jane, I'm caught up in all the lies here. Tell me something true. Anything."

Ever the contrarian, he says without hesitation: "the moon is made of cheese."

That startles a laugh out of her, and she wonders how he knew that she needed it even over the phone.

"Something true, huh? How about what I already told you the other day? I miss you, Lisbon."

"You saw me a day ago."

"Meh. Point still stands, my dear. How are things in the slammer?"

She sighs. "Not so great. I can't get her to crack - none of your tricks worked. It's like we're doing the cha-cha - I take a step forward, she takes one back. I'm not sure I can do this."

"Nonsense. Of course you can."

"You don't know this girl, Jane-"

"-let me guess, tough cookie, likes to hide her emotions under a hard veneer?"

"How did you-"

"I think I know someone like that, Teresa. I'm still working on it, but if the last few days have taught me anything, it's that telling the truth helps. Lowering my own guard, so to speak."

Her fingers toy with the wire protruding from the end of the phone, just for something to do. "Is it working?" She knows it is.

"You're on the phone with me, aren't you? Trust me. Tell her something true. Anything."

She smiles. "Am I talking to my echo?"

She doesn't hear whatever he says in response, because a blonde inmate taps her on the shoulder roughly and then snatches the phone right out of her hands to slam it into the cradle. "You haven't been here long enough for extended phone privileges, lady. We're all waiting here. You can talk to your boyfriend next week."

Lisbon takes a breath, beating back the urge to fight back. The girl is half her age, far too young to be locked up in a federal pen. Lisbon backs down and after a minute hears the girl, who has a hint of an accent - British? Dutch? - talking to her father and sounding a little like a lost child. She wonders what must have gone wrong in the girl's life to have led her into a federal penitentiary.

It's late by the time Lisbon finds the opportunity to talk to her cellmate again. She hears the other woman tossing around restlessly in the dark, and tentatively calls out. "Can't sleep?"

The noise stops. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing, I can't either. It's too hot, and I keep thinking about the people I don't get to see while I'm in here."

Marie sighs. "Yeah. I miss my boyfriend. I guess I got used to sharing the bed. Who are you thinking about?"

She can almost hear Jane's voice in her head, encouraging her to share something true. She blushes a little, glad for the cover of darkness, glad he isn't there to hear her say "um, a friend of mine. He's usually pretty good at knowing how to make me feel better."

"Is he hot?"

Lisbon doesn't respond, feeling her face go even warmer, and her cellmate seems to get all the confirmation she needs.

"You sleep with him?"

"No."

Marie's response is incredulous. "You have a hot friend who knows how to make you feel better and you haven't slept with him?"

Thankfully, Lisbon is saved from responding, because the girl goes on, the late hour and Lisbon's admission apparently loosening her tongue. "My boyfriend's pretty hot too. His name's Cole, he's a real outlaw. Cole and me - we live _wild_. I definitely didn't wait around with him. We live in a warehouse right now, but when I get out of here, I'm gonna get him to book us a room and not get out for the _whole weekend_."

"When I get out of here, I just really want a nice shower - no flip flops, no worrying about the soap."

"I think I want a big ol' bath. You know, like rich people have, big enough to swim in."

"What I wouldn't give for a nice dinner. Food here isn't exactly gourmet, huh?"

Marie laughs a little. "Ah it's not so bad. Cole and me were livin' off of gas station chimichangas before the feds got me. Like I said, we live wild."

"Sounds like fun." She pauses, mentally cataloguing the information she's gleaned. "You know what else I miss though? Good coffee."

" _Chocolate_."

Marie falls silent, and Lisbon does too, feeling like she'd made progress. She turns on her side, trying to fall asleep and batting away thoughts about Jane's physical attractiveness. She'd gotten good at _not_ thinking about that for twelve years, though he certainly made it difficult at times in his impeccably cut suits and oddly soft shirts and that beautiful hair of his. She shuts down the thought immediately, like she always has, but then she hears Marie's incredulity again and hesitates.

There's no serial killer looming over them anymore, no reason to keep looking over her shoulder. She isn't his boss any more either, though he'd never seemed to care about that particular aspect of their relationship. And she is single again and happier for it. There aren't any compelling reasons left for her not to think about him, aside from the fact that they've been friends for so long. And the fact that he doesn't seem to want that to change. But that just isn't enough, so she lets her mind wander freely as she tries to fall asleep, cloaked in darkness and hemmed in by prison bars.

A guard appears what feels like five minutes later, though the lights are all on again and she can see strips of daylight in the high windows out in the hallway. Forget the shower, she just wants to sleep in her own bed again, not feel like there are eyes on her at every moment. She shudders, grateful that she's usually on the right side of the law. If she feels like this after just two nights, she would never survive a lengthy prison sentence. She's very glad she won't have to.

"You have a visitor," the guard says, and then gives her a once over. Lisbon tries not to roll her eyes - clearly, her visitor is Jane, and he'd already set about charming everyone.

Marie watches with interest, and then raises her eyebrows, interpreting the guard's look the same way Lisbon had. "Your hot friend is visiting you in jail, huh?"

"I guess. Is your boyfriend gonna come visit you today?" Lisbon asks while the guard snaps cuffs back around her wrists.

"Nah. I'll see him soon enough though." Marie's eyes slide away, and Lisbon realizes that the girl is contemplating a jail break. An idea begins to alight.

When she enters the visiting room, she spots Jane immediately, and nearly has to stop in her tracks. Luckily, he's looking down at his watch and doesn't catch her stumble. Of course, her guard does notice and smirks, her hand firm on Lisbon's elbow. Lisbon ignores her, busy taking in the sight of Jane back in one of his vests. He looks up as she approaches, dropping a hand from his still scruffy chin to smile widely. He looks like he could be on the set of an advertisement for high end suits or expensive cologne, out of place sitting in a grungy prison visiting room waiting to have a conversation that could just as easily be had over the phone.

Lisbon is hit with a wave of _want_ like she hasn't felt in a long time, and immediately blames Marie for making her think of Jane this way in the dark of night. She finally remembers why she'd always avoided letting her thoughts wander in that direction, holding on valiantly to blaming her cellmate instead of the way she wants to reach for him through the glass and _-_

-she shuts the thought down.

She isn't sure she's completely successful, because his smile drops into something a little more smug, and instead of a greeting what comes out of his mouth instead is "I see you took my advice. And you talked about _me_ , huh?"

Thankfully the teasing, flirting lilt in his voice is the same it's always been as long as she's known him, and she latches onto it to drag herself back to normalcy.

Out loud, she scoffs. "Please. Don't flatter yourself." But unable to help it, she drops her eyes to his torso, unconsciously biting her lower lip. "I see the vests are back."

He leans back, running a hand down the wool. "Oh this? Thought I should dress up a little, look the part." He eyes her again, taking in her expression, and leans forward towards the glass between them. "I had no idea you liked them so much though, Lisbon. I'll have to keep that in mind."

She immediately feels her face go red and glares at him as he grins. "Shut up."

But then they both fall silent, and it's awkward in a way they never used to be, and she's reminded all over again about the distance in between them. Taking him for that drive had been a good start, and it had been reminiscent of the comfortable conversations they used to have back in California while driving for hours to and from crime scenes. Now she's determined to make up for her part in all this, for pushing him away and keeping him at arm's length since she'd gotten to Austin. Maybe, just maybe, she can pull him closer instead.

So she raises a finger and presses it against the glass a little absently, meeting his eyes again. "I'm glad you're here, Jane." She allows herself a single moment to wonder if he wants her too when he smiles and raises his own hand to the other side of the glass. It occurs to her that she's almost always glad to see him, and that when she pictures what life will look like five, ten years in the future, he's usually hovering around the mental image with a cup of tea and a smile firmly in place. That thought leads to several more disquieting ones and the wrong side of a prison is not the place to consider them, so she looks away, clearing her throat.

And then she gets back into work mode, dropping her voice so she won't be overheard. "Actually, I got some details from Marie last night - they were living in a warehouse and eating a lot of gas station chimichangas. It isn't a lot, but I think I have an idea. It's something I could use your help with."

Jane nods for her to go on, eyes twinkling. "You know I'd do anything for you, Lisbon."

"I think Marie is going to try to escape to meet up with Cole Foster. I figure why not give her a hand, see if I can get them to take me all the way to wherever they have the cars instead of trying to get her to tell me?"

He looks both impressed and intrigued, so she adds quietly, "what do you say, want to help me plan a great escape?"

He grins.

The escape plan goes off without a hitch. Until it doesn't.

Until Lisbon finds herself unarmed in a gas station convenience store in the company of her target and her perp, both more violent and dangerous than she'd accounted for. She's hastily scribbling a note to warn the attendant when she hears Foster's gun go off. And again. And again. And again.

It's like the movies, watching in slow motion horror as the man falls to the ground, blood pooling on the floor. She feels sick.

 _Too slow. Too slow!_ Her own voice taunts in her head. _A homicide detective too slow to prevent a homicide._

Marie laughs as if delighted by the turn of events, hanging onto her boyfriend with nearly delirious glee. Lisbon wants to sink to the floor, but instead she keeps her cool and maintains her cover as best as she can. She has to see this through, now. There's no other choice.

She deliberately swipes her foot in the red pool at her feet, leaving a map of sorts for Jane. The blood smears across the white tile in a curve as her foot slides through it, slick. She feels the awful irony of it, knowing he will spot it and knowing exactly what nightmares it will remind him of. She follows Marie out the door and keeps her cool as best as she can when Foster slings one arm around each of them.

Foster's lackey Hendricks leaves a gun unattended in her sight as he preps the helicopter, and Lisbon can't help but inch for it. With Foster and Marie both armed and with no way to contact her team, she knows her window is narrowing. She needs to see this through, needs to see them caught, and her only chance is to somehow disable the chopper and hope Jane can figure out where they are. _Almost there_.

Foster spots her.

All too soon, she's alone with her arms up and three guns pointed at her, no upper ground in sight and nothing left to say to talk herself out of this. She feels vulnerable in a way she never does when she has her weapon and badge, and she suddenly recalls the way that some of the cops on the force used to refer to it as a shield. She feels exposed without it, afraid as she stares down the barrel with no backup in sight.

No cover to duck behind. Nowhere to run, either.

For a brief moment, she thinks she's hallucinating when she hears Jane's voice in the clearing.

But then he appears from behind a tree holding his wallet in the air and it only takes one look at his face to know he'd come alone. Foster comes to the same conclusion a moment later, shooting at whatever Jane had set up to make it look like he'd brought snipers. The glass shatters, and with it the illusion of backup.

The desperation is naked on Jane's face, and she can see him silently trying to convey something to her even with a gun pointed at his heart. But there is so much adrenaline pounding through her head that she can't make sense of it, can't read him. All she can think is that they're both going to die - that she will have to watch it happen - and that now, when it counts, she will have failed to protect him. She failed to protect that cashier, is failing to protect herself, and will fail to protect Jane. Jane, who had only wanted to be free of all this, wanted to live outside death's shadow, who had given it all up on the promise of working with her again.

She holds his gaze, willing him to focus on her, and he does with his eyes wide.

She has three startling thoughts in quick succession as she hears the gun cock, Foster taking aim.

First, that she is grateful that at least Jane will not have to watch her die.

Second, that she cannot picture her life without him in it, not anymore.

Third, that she does not want to. Third, that she loves him. Third, that she probably has for a long time.

Suddenly Cho's voice calls out, and then he appears with Abbott beside him, another three agents in formation behind them, all of them armed and their sights trained on Cole, Marie, and Hendricks.

She lowers her arms as they arrest the car thief-turned-murderer, breathing heavily as Jane strides over to her. He hands her a bottle of something garishly blue, and she takes it numbly, wanting to drop it on the ground and wrap her arms around him instead. But there is something newly shuttered in his eyes, something pained and fearful that reminds her of the way he'd looked in the early days after they met, the haunted look that settled on his face whenever they had a Red John case. He holds himself stiffly in front of her, just out of reach.

"Thank you for coming after me," she tells him, wanting to chase that look away from him.

But it stays fixed on his face and he doesn't answer. Instead, he fishes something from his pocket and hands it to her, not meeting her eyes. He steps away from her even as she takes it, and she watches him retreat across their canyon, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket.

She tears her eyes from the back of his head and takes a look at the object he'd given her. It's a spherical ball of cheese, and he'd scrawled "MOON" on the plastic wrapping. It takes her a second to recall their earlier conversation, and she almost smiles.

Almost. Because he's walking away and taking the words with him unsaid. She hears them anyway. _I'd do anything for you, even bring you the moon._

She finds herself wishing he would turn around and say them. But something like dread settles in the pit of her stomach when she understands that he won't, that he can't after being confronted with the very real possibility that she could have died right in front of him. Not with his history. His nightmares and fears are part of the distance between them, and nothing she can do or say can erase them. It's easy to pretend sometimes that he isn't traumatized by what he'd survived and what he'd done, but she knows that the terror and tragedy of losing his family will always be a part of him. She knows that she and Cho are the only people he has left, and he'd said it plainly to her days ago - losing her would mean game over for him. Nobody could handle that kind of loss twice.

She lets him walk away.

Over the next couple of days as she deals with her lingering guilt, he alternatively hovers and keeps his distance. It's as if he wants to keep an eye on her to reassure himself and at the same time wants to run from the pain that could come with allowing himself to get any closer.

She recognizes it because she'd done the same thing. She wonders if this is what their relationship will be like now, like tides pushing and pulling at each other but never really settling in the middle. If it's his turn again now that she's done running from him. She doesn't want it to be.

Eventually, the annoyance bubbles up out of her, and she pulls him into a side hallway. "Knock it off," she demands.

He doesn't look at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She feels the irony of it all, revisiting the way their conversation in the Airstream had started, only now with their roles reversed. She stares him down, refusing to let him keep running just like he'd stopped her. She won't allow it to go on for months, not again.

"Yes, you do. You're blaming yourself because you planned the op and didn't think Cole Foster would be a killer. But none of us did. Nothing in his file said he would be. It wasn't your fault, and what's more, I'm _fine_."

"Abbott was wary about putting you in danger just to catch a car thief, but I insisted, said you could do it. It _was_ my fault, Lisbon!"

She lays a hand on his arm. "No, Jane. Sounds like you just believed in me. How can you be mad at yourself for that? I'm not. If anything, it was my fault for not seeing the signs in Marie after spending time with her; I was the one who let that cashier get killed. We can lay the blame forever, but at the end of the day we both got out of it as usual. Not even a scratch!" She adds a little levity into her tone and holds out her left arm as if proffering it for inspection, trying to break the tension.

He just keeps staring at the tiles on the floor, frown not lifting from his face.

She lets out a breath, dropping her arm, though her other hand still stays on his elbow.

"Jane, don't do this. We were just making some progress, weren't we? I really don't want to have to go back to missing you. Don't run away from me again." She steps closer, forcing herself into the line of his vision. "Please."

He sighs, and finally looks at her. His hand comes up to pat hers, and he nods slowly, reluctantly. "Okay."

The bridge she'd been building to cross the canyon had been wrecked by his fear, but she mentally dusts herself off and gets ready to rebuild, hoping he will meet her in the middle. She needs him to, now that she knows what she feels for him.

"Do you want to go for another drive? We can even take the Airstream if you want."

That finally garners her a smile, but it's one of his sad ones. "That's very sweet Lisbon. You hate the Airstream. Do I really seem so upset?"

 _Yes,_ she thinks, just like she had the first time they had this conversation what must have been a decade ago. And just like then, she says "you know what? Never mind."

Unlike that time, his smile gets less sad, and he leans over to gently kiss her cheek with his hand still warm over hers. "Thank you," he says softly as he pulls away.

She wants to follow him, wants to grab on and never let go, wants to push him into a closet and see what happens. But it's too soon. Instead, she just squeezes his arm and lets him out of her grasp, and they both retreat back down the hallway and back into the bullpen together. He makes for his couch, and she makes for her desk, and they will things to go back to normal.

* * *

Crime waits for no man - or woman, in Lisbon's case, though their next op almost has her regretting daydreaming about a nice vacation after her last ordeal.

Cho brings a file over and stands in front of her desk to speak with both her and Jane. "Good work catching Cole Foster. Sang like a bird, gave us names and locations, even personal contacts for a whole list of international smugglers."

He turns his attention to Jane, and Lisbon is surprised to see a smirk on his face. "Turns out we know one of those contacts. Or rather, you do."

"Me?"

Cho hands him the file, still smirking, and Jane opens it with what looks like a mix of curiosity and trepidation on his face. His face immediately falls. "Oh..."

Cho's gaze flits over to Lisbon for a moment before coming back to rest on Jane, still amused. "Abbott will call a briefing soon," he says, and walks away.

"Jane? Who is it?"

He gives her a slightly unsettled, uncomfortable look and then wordlessly passes over the file.

Erica Flynn.

Technically, Abbott only calls Jane and Cho into the briefing, but Jane waves her in with a look to Abbott, who shrugs. They're gathered in the conference room instead of in the bullpen - ostensibly for privacy, though Lisbon cannot imagine how anything stays need-to-know when discussed in the fishbowl with all transparent walls. Abbott and a CIA Agent - Danitra Cass - present the three of them with information on a series of terrorist plots all over the globe and explain that they've traced all of them to one common link: a supplier named Jan Nemec based out of Beirut.

Cass nods at them. "This is where we could use your help. A source tells us that Nemec just sent a shipment of passport chips into the US that's been connected to a terrorist cell out of the Philippines - those chips can be used to get into the US undetected, and we think it's the first step towards an attack on American soil. We need to find those chips and arrest Nemec." She pauses, fixing her attention on Jane.

"Actually, it's because of this woman - Erica Flynn. She ran into Mr. Nemec about a year ago - she's his girlfriend. Mr. Jane, what exactly was your relationship with her?"

Jane looks uncomfortable. "Me? Why?"

Cass meets him with a stern set to her face. "Well, we contacted Ms. Flynn, and she's willing to help us find the chips and arrest Mr. Nemec in exchange for reduced charges on her murder sentence. But she insists on working with you, says no other person will do."

Jane's eyebrows rise in surprise almost as far as Lisbon's do.

"No other person will do," Lisbon repeats, amused. He shrugs, opening his mouth to say something, but he is interrupted by the buzz of Cass's phone.

"I'll have to take this – need to confirm things with the source if you're agreed. Any questions before I go?"

Cho nods. "Yeah. If she'll only work with Jane, why are we here?"

Abbott answers him, nodding his go-ahead for Cass to step out for her call. "Well, if Jane's going to Beirut, he's going to need a handler to go with him, make sure nothing goes sideways. Since you've worked with him for so long, you're the obvious choice, Agent Cho."

Jane cuts in. "Dennis, if I may? Not that I wouldn't love the chance to go on a trip with my good friend Cho here, I think Lisbon should be the one to come with me."

Abbott smirks at him. "Of course you do."

Jane shrugs again, not taking the bait. "If I'm not mistaken, it's a fairly conservative country, and whichever agent comes to uh, handle me will have to stay in the same hotel, meet with me once I make contact, keep tabs, so on. It might raise fewer eyebrows if I were traveling undercover with a woman, don't you think?" His tone is reasonable, measured, and Abbott can't poke holes in his logic.

Encouraged by the silence, Jane continues. "I suppose I could take any female agent, but Erica Flynn is already familiar with Lisbon and can vouch for her when Jan Nemec inevitably figures out I didn't come alone."

He turns to Lisbon and meets her eye.

"Of course, only if you're okay with coming undercover with me again." And then, apparently unable to resist, he warns, "It'll be a tough mission though, visiting a beautiful country on the FBI's dime. The hotel might even be the kind to put mints on the pillow. Very different from your prison digs. I even hear they have orange blossom ice cream."

Hiding a smirk, Lisbon shakes her head. "No." But before the smile can fall off his face, she adds, "actually, if we're humoring this case at all, I insist on being there. I don't trust Erica Flynn for a second. Though I don't like the idea of helping her get out of the charges from _my_ arrest."

Jane ignores her last statement, turning victoriously to Abbott. "There you go then; Lisbon can protect me from the murderous matchmaker!"

They're booked on the next flight out.

* * *

Erica Flynn sits down across from them at the Hotel Metropole, resplendent and dangerous as ever in a designer dress and tasteful shoes. She is as strange and unpredictable as she was when they first met her, wielding her beauty as both weapon and disguise.

She doesn't say anything for a moment, allowing them both to observe her while she rakes her eyes over Jane in a manner that is both too familiar and too obvious. Lisbon tries not to fidget in discomfort, but is glad not to be given a second glance.

"You look well, Patrick. I'm glad to see you, though the circumstances aren't so _friendly_ as the last time we saw each other." She deliberately swipes a hand over her lips, leaving Lisbon with no doubts about what that encounter must have entailed. Belatedly, she turns to Lisbon. "It's nice to see you too, Teresa."

"Ms. Flynn, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a couple questions," Lisbon says, not bothering with niceties.

"Of course. Erica, please." She tilts her head towards Lisbon, sipping at her tea.

"How did you get involved with Jan Nemec?"

"It's kind of embarrassing, actually. I was in Sao Paolo, and I ran into some trouble - money trouble." She turns her attention back to Jane. "You're in a foreign country, cut off from everything you know; you know how difficult it is to live like that."

She smiles and blinks up at him from under her lashes, bashful. "Jan was very charming, and he offered to help. We started seeing each other, fell into traveling together. I didn't know what he does for a living," she insists, still looking at Jane.

Lisbon doesn't hide her scoff.

"He told me he was a business man. I suspected maybe it was unsavory, illegal, maybe. But not what it actually involves. When the CIA told me, I was horrified!"

"And is that why you're turning him in?" Jane asks, none of the extra warmth in his voice that is in Erica's.

She tsks, and doesn't answer the question. Instead, her eyes fall on his ring, and she tilts her head, lifting one manicured eyebrow. One of her Mona Lisa smiles is firmly in place when she looks back up at him. "Oh Patrick, I'd _so_ hoped you'd have moved on by now, found someone to love. I'd heard that Red John had been killed two years ago."

Jane doesn't break her gaze, adept at hiding his reactions. But Erica seems to read something from it all the same, because she reaches out a hand to settle it on his knee. "Oh I see, you _have_ found someone! I'm happy for you, I know how much you wanted love in your life."

He gently shifts his knee out from beneath her hand, and rephrases his question. "Really, Erica, what's in this for you? Seemed to me that you were enjoying your life on the run."

Unswayed by his rebuff, she straightens up, keeping her eyes on him. "You're right. That's not the only reason I'm turning him in. No, it's mainly because I want to go back home. I miss it more than I thought I would," she says, voice a little low. "When you were away, weren't there things that you missed that you would have given anything to get back?"

He again doesn't reply, but his gaze betrays him and flicks over to Lisbon just once. The motion is swiftly caught by Erica, who seems delighted to have spotted it. She turns her attention on Lisbon again, her smile still fixed in place. Lisbon can see that it doesn't quite reach her eyes any more, and stays alert.

"Oh! So it's you he loves, is it?" This time Erica's eyes rake over Lisbon, but it's a harsher, more calculating look, not the sultry one she'd leveled on Jane earlier.

To her credit, Lisbon doesn't react at all, having been through this before with Sean Barlow and Lorelei. Practice had made perfect, and she steadily returns Erica's gaze, not even the barest twitch of an eyelid betraying any reaction to the pronouncement.

Losing their battle of wills, Erica thrusts her chin forward slightly, a little superior. "You'd do anything for him, wouldn't you? It's such a shame you won't last."

At this, Lisbon snorts. She needn't have worried about the woman at all - Erica had clearly lost her touch.

But Jane bristles, and his voice is low and a little threatening when he says "don't talk to Lisbon like that."

Lisbon glances at him in surprise as Erica leans back, looking like the cat that got the cream. It isn't like him to fall into such obvious traps.

"It was only an observation, Patrick, though I _am_ the best at what I do. I always thought you needed someone a little more..." she trails off, tapping a chin- " _unpredictable_ in your life."

"Who is or isn't in my life is none of your concern, and you needn't talk to her like that."

Erica just smirks at him, lifting one hand as if backing down.

"When will we be meeting Nemec? You were to be arranging the meet today - unless you'd like to be arrested without the deal?" Lisbon snaps the woman's attention back to herself, back to business.

"Oh, no. Patrick will have to go alone. Jan is very suspicious; he doesn't even know you're here. But you're right, Patrick and I should get going now."

Lisbon frowns, looking at Jane. "I don't think I like this."

"Don't worry. It'll- it'll be fine."

It isn't. Nemec's men come for her barely fifteen minutes after Jane leaves with Erica. She resists, but cannot shoot at them outright while they still have Jane somewhere, and so is shoved into a car with her hands tied both figuratively and literally.

Thankfully, they don't lay another hand on her, though they do lock her in an empty room in what looks like it was once a hotel. She's nearly finished figuring out how to free herself and escape by the time Nemec shows up, and she surreptitiously steps away from the vase she'd been about to break. He speaks to another man in what sounds like Russian, and then nods at the ties around her wrists. Grumbling slightly, the larger man unties her and then pushes her roughly towards Nemec. She rubs at her wrists, sore from the coarse rope.

"What do you want from me? Why am I here?" she demands.

Nemec levels her with a look. "I could ask the same thing," he says in English, and then puts an arm around her to lead her out of the room. She does her best not to flinch away, still not sure of the situation.

"I just have one question," Nemec says to someone in the other room. "Who's this? And uh, why is she with you?"

Her eyes immediately fall on Jane where he sits in the other room, drenched, his clothes still dripping water all over the carpet at his feet. He looks worse for the wear, but uninjured, so she ventures, "Hi. Why are you wet?"

"Uh, that's just a gag of Jan's here."

Jane then smoothly slides into his cover, introducing her to Jan as his girlfriend while still casually wringing water out of his collar. The thought gives her a funny little feeling that she'd have described as butterflies if she were twenty years younger, but then Nemec's man pulls up her name in connection with the FBI and any butterflies she might have had immediately die. She prays that Wylie's tricks work, not relaxing fully until Nemec pulls up an image of the badge they'd mocked up using someone else's face.

Jane stands and strides towards her, tossing the towel at the henchman as he goes. "Teresa and I are going back to our hotel," he informs Nemec, voice brokering no argument. "You'll know where to find me if you choose to get in touch. Like I said, twenty thousand just for getting me wet."

They're hardly back for two minutes when the front desk calls - Nemec is waiting in the lobby, probably had followed them immediately. Jane goes with a sigh, his feet still squelching a little in his shoes as he walks. Lisbon bites back a smile as he grimaces, but he catches it and complains a little more loudly for her amusement as they make their way back downstairs. Instead of following him towards Nemec, she makes for the front desk instead, knowing Nemec would only grow more suspicious if she sat in on their conversation. She uses the time to ask for some hot tea to be sent up to their room after the meeting, knowing Jane is probably freezing in his still damp suit.

Unfortunately, even though Jane is successful in winning Nemec's trust and getting the coded message across to the FBI, the contact in the US is killed while trying to flee a few hours later. Abbott calls to tell them to go to ground before Nemec finds out, but determination settles on Jane's face.

"I have an idea," he says, and hangs up on their boss, pulling the phone from Lisbon's hand to call Erica while flagging down a passing taxi.

"Jane, do we really need her? She has a pattern of getting the better of you - and she made it pretty clear how she did it last time."

He's prevented from responding right away as Erica picks up on the other end, and he makes quick work of the conversation, agreeing to meet her at Nemec's in a half an hour. Lisbon stares out the window of the taxi, jaw set.

He lays a hand on her wrist after he hangs up. "Were you asking if something happened between me and Erica before?"

Lisbon sighs, unsure if she wants that information or if she even has a right to ask. And then she decides it doesn't matter, turning back to face him.

"No. I'm not. I just want to be sure that she doesn't use you to escape again, Jane."

"Hmm. Somehow I think she'll have a harder time of it, this time."

He hasn't moved his hand, and she's sure he can feel her pulse race. She swallows, mouth suddenly dry. "Why's that?"

But then the taxi stops at their hotel and the driver turns around expectantly, breaking the moment.

Jane just smiles at her. "I'll be back soon. I think you're right - she will try to use me to escape, but I have a plan. She won't try anything until after we've caught Nemec, so we have some time. I promise I'll explain after I find the key to the cipher. Trust me."

He says the last like a request, so Lisbon studies him for a moment before exiting the car. "I do trust you," she tells him, and enjoys the way his smile blooms even in the dark.

She watches as the taxi speeds off towards Nemec's apartment, wondering what would he would have said if they hadn't arrived at the hotel just then.

As it turns out, Jane's plan entails her picking a fight with him in Erica's earshot, pretending to be the jealous girlfriend to get Erica to drop her suspicions and overplay her hand. Lisbon isn't sure about the logic of this plan - even if they really were together, she could hardly be upset with him because he'd kissed Erica once, years ago. She herself had had several dalliances over the years, most of which had gone much further than a single kiss. Hell, she'd given real thought to moving across the country with Marcus just two months ago.

But Jane assures her it'll work and she can't see the harm, so she plays along, yelling at him in the hallway and then stalking off. She even sends a little glare into the security camera outside for added flair, knowing Erica Flynn will be watching.

Evidently the harm in the plan is a taser to the gut for Jane, but Lisbon gets the satisfaction of arresting Erica Flynn for a second time as he emerges from the apartment on his own two feet, so overall, Lisbon decides it was worth it.

* * *

An hour later, she confronts him in their room. "Jane," she says, and waits until his head emerges from beneath a towel, curls springing up in every direction.

He'd showered as soon as they'd gotten in from arresting Erica, which had surprised her. If she'd endured a near drowning like he had, she'd have endeavored to stay dry as long as she could stand it. Then again, of the two of them, he's the one who'd actually drowned before, and he'd still gravitated towards ponds and coastlines and islands all the time. If her faith allowed her to believe in past lives, she'd think he might once have been an otter or some other aquatic creature.

He's dressed now in one of his island shirts and slacks, obviously grateful to be in dry clothes, but his hair is still damp. She watches in fascination as he puts something in it to try to keep it from drying in a way that would make him look like he'd stuck a finger into a socket. She's so distracted watching that she doesn't immediately realize that he's answered her until he ducks to catch her gaze in the mirror and smiles.

"Oh, sorry. I always did wonder what you did to your hair. One mystery solved," she tells him, and waits until he's turned around and faced her before continuing.

"Jane, what Erica said before…" she trails off, unsure about making the leap into asking, knowing it could change everything. But she wants it to, so she musters up the courage.

"Was she right? Do you love me?"

His hand stills in his hair, but his response is immediate. "Of course I do. How could I not?" He says it like it's obvious, and then goes back to what he was doing.

 _Maybe a little too obvious?_ she wonders.

"No. I mean. Are you in love with me?" She tries to ignore the way her heart is pounding.

He stops again, and this time slowly picks up his towel and wipes his hands free of product. And then he steps forward carefully and gently takes hold of one of her hands while tipping up her chin to meet his eyes. "Yes," he says. "I am."

She seizes his collar and surges closer, tugging him towards her as she goes, and they are already standing so close that they crash into each other messily, lips more sloppy than gentle in Lisbon's haste.

 _Twelve years and five months and two days,_ she thinks, kissing her way down his neck when he tries to slow things down. _I'm not wasting any more time._

She has almost divested him of his shirt when his phone rings. She stops him before he can even think of reaching for it, barely noticing the fact that he doesn't. "No," she tells him, gripping his shirt with both hands and feeling suddenly possessive. "You're mine." She pulls the shirt off him, and then pushes him towards the bed, yanking off her flowy dress in the same motion.

He's laughing by the time she reaches for him again, only too willing to do as she wants. He drops his mouth to her collarbone before she can reach for his pants, effectively stilling her. "Yes," he repeats as his hands skim up her sides. "Yours." He finds her mouth again, and murmurs against it. "Yours."

She's distracted by the feel of his hands for several moments, but then she finally hears what he'd said and sits up with a gasp. A little whine erupts from the back of his throat at the sudden loss of contact.

"You said that in your letters," she accuses. "You signed them with 'yours.'"

He sits up too, flushed and confused with her abrupt change of pace. "Yes?" he tries. "I did."

"You wrote me _love_ _letters_." She's frowning at him, and she watches him wonder if she's upset with him. And then she watches him eyeing the way her own flush has traveled beyond her face.

"I did," he agrees finally, eyes back on hers. One of his hands slides up and down her arm, warm.

She shoves at his shoulder, lightly. "You never said the words!"

He sighs, giving up his quest to resume what they'd been doing. "I said everything but the words. They seemed like the kind of thing you say in person for the first time, not over letters. Especially not when I didn't know when I'd see you again. Or if you'd found someone else in Washington."

"But you've been back for months now," she points out.

"You weren't exactly happy with me," he returns.

"Not all the time."

He tilts his head in concession, but then looks away and fidgets with his hands like he does when he's uncertain. "Rigsby actually give me a nudge when he was in Austin, before the uh, Haibach case. I was... afraid. I _am_ afraid - terrified, really, of what losing you could do to me. But telling you or not won't change how I feel, so I was working up the courage after that - tried telling you, actually, during the uh, the last time we were undercover together."

"When you were talking about the painting," she realizes, remembering the case. "You told MacKaye that the artist couldn't tell the woman he loved that he loved her, so he did it with a painting. Like your letters." She doesn't comment on his fears, knowing they'd come far too close to experiencing just that far too recently.

Jane clears his throat a little awkwardly, looking away. "Yeah. I was going to tell you after we got done with the case. Bought you a print, actually."

After a moment, she understands. "But then Marcus asked me out, and I said yes," she finishes for him. She can picture him rolling up the print and stashing it away, still in that stupid little scarf of his. The image makes her heart ache.

He doesn't answer, head bowed, and it dawns on her that while she'd been pushing him away because of all the secrets accruing between them that only ever seemed to hurt her, he'd had to keep one that must have hurt him just as bad. He'd deliberately taken lockpicks to her _Do Not Disturb_ box, but she'd inadvertently taken a hammer to his, shattering the contents in the process.

Sitting there sadly in only her underwear and he only in his slacks in a beautiful country she'd never expected to visit on a case they never should have taken, she wishes a little bit that she hadn't wasted those four weeks and two days. It had set them back months. That she knows logically that it hadn't really been her fault at all doesn't make her feel any better. She's glad all over again that she'd decided not to leave, that she'd decided to try to fix things between them.

The fervor of the moment is long gone, so she reaches for him again, slower this time, and draws her lips against his stubbled cheek. "Jane," she says softly, and his hands come up automatically to settle against her waist.

She moves so she can reach his other cheek, placing another slow kiss there. "I'm yours too," she tells him.

She holds his face in both of her hands, and he smells like hotel soap and whatever he'd put in his hair. She kisses him softly and slowly like their first kiss always should have been. One of his hands comes up to her hair, gentle, and the way he holds her makes her feel warm and cherished in a way she's never really experienced before.

He kisses her back just as tenderly, but then pulls back a little, the hand in her hair coming forward to caress her face. "I'm saying the words now, Teresa" he tells her, slowly tucking a lock of hair behind her ear before meeting her eyes with a smile full of sincerity. "I love you. I love you so much."

She's kissing him again when the phone rings once more, but she stops him from turning away again. "I want to say them too," she tells him, and takes a deep breath. The words are rising up from inside, bumping bluntly into her ribcage like lost moths in the night. She'd avoided admitting them even to herself until recently, but it's been true for years. "I love you too."

He smiles at her, and the phone goes on ringing.

"Actually," he says, gently freeing his legs out from under her, "I have something for you. We'll have to get dressed though, because it isn't in here."

Lisbon pouts at him a little, but pulls her dress back on. He reaches out a hand when he's finished buttoning his shirt, and she takes it a little shyly, letting him lead her out of the room.

They head up the stairs as she belatedly remembers that they're supposed to be on their way to the airport soon – the phone call had probably been Wylie with their flight details. But Jane's hand is warm around hers and his excitement about whatever it is he has planned is bubbling out of him, so she doesn't say anything as he pushes open a door and leads her out onto the rooftop.

The city glows around them in the night, and there's a table for two set up over on the far side. Lisbon stops short, eyes wide. "You did all this for me? You were going to tell me tonight anyway, weren't you?" she asks, squeezing his hand.

He nods, and then lifts their hands to press a kiss to her knuckles. He releases her hand, and then bends down behind the table to pull something from a cooler. "I promised you orange blossom ice cream," he says, smiling. "You're right, I was going to tell you here, but you beat me to the punch. I think it makes for a pretty good first date though."

He looks away then, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Oh, but I shouldn't presume…"

"Jane!" She steps closer to him, tugging on his shoulders before kissing him soundly. They're both a little dazed by the time she releases him, but she doesn't let him get far, arms still around him.

"You should presume," she tells him. "I want you to. You know me better than anyone, Jane, and… I'm sorry I made you feel like you didn't."

He shakes his head, pulling her into a hug and tucking his face into her neck. She holds him just as fiercely, one of her hands coming up to stroke the back of his head. "Will you say it again?" he asks after a moment, voice muffled.

"Say what again?" She thinks she knows.

He doesn't answer, just tightens his arms, lifting his head slightly to press his lips against her pulse point.

She smiles, opening her mouth to say it, but a bright flash startles her, and she jumps back. "What was that?"

Jane laughs, turning her around so she's looking out over the city. "Fireworks. They're celebrating Eid. Can't take the girl out of Chicago, huh?"

She bumps her shoulder into him in response to his teasing, secretly happy to know that they are still friends even though things have changed.

"My ice cream is melting," she observes, extricating herself so she can pick it up from the table. She offers him one of the spoons, her eyes sliding shut as the sweet, tangy flavor bursts along her tongue. Even with her eyes closed can still see the flashes of light from the fireworks as they burst along the sky.

When she opens her eyes again, Jane is smiling at her, a new tenderness in his eyes that makes her feel warm despite the coolness of the ice cream.

She'd visited the Grand Canyon once when she was young, before losing her mother. She'd sat in her school's library and read all about it in the week before they'd left home, had even briefly entertained the idea of growing up to be a geologist. She'd announced to her mother on the flight that the canyon was a whole mile deep, the Colorado River exposing something like two billion years of history while it carved its way through the rock. She remembers peering through one of the viewfinders on a cliff's edge in Arizona, standing on tippy toe while her father held her up and her brothers fought for their turn like puppies. She'd looked and looked until she could just spot the river snaking its way around a bend all the way down, surprised that it seemed so small when it had created something so incredible.

She almost feels like she can hear the river water roaring in her ears now, with Jane smiling at her like that. They're standing at the bottom of their canyon together, looking up and admiring the view of the years of their history, getting ready to carve out something grand.


End file.
